


Old Homes

by blurhawaii



Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 03:51:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13562199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blurhawaii/pseuds/blurhawaii
Summary: “I think about Chicago sometimes,” Tomas says. “About how it was my home and, at the same time, it wasn’t. Being on the road like this, one thing has been made clear to me; a home can be multiple things.”





	Old Homes

“When they would come to me, I used to hold their hands and tell them demons--they were not real. I can’t help but wonder now if I ever sent someone away, back to a child, or a partner maybe. A loved one that needed my help--God’s help, I should say.”

It’s not much of a recreation room that they’re sitting in, more of a nebulas space between the continental breakfast and the evening sandwiches that the elderly lady who owns the place with her husband assures them she’d be happy to make, despite the fact that he and Marcus appear to be the only two guests crazy enough to brave the storm. The window they’re sitting under doesn’t close all the way, the wood warped too far out of shape from years of rain and it’s leaking in now as the wind blows in a particular direction.

The colour is lacking and the lighting dim but there is a pack of cards left out on a table bookended by two chairs. And Tomas is already sick enough of the view inside their room that he’s content to deal out hands of what had started out as poker, before they both realised they were rather terrible at keeping things from each other, and has now dissolved into something resembling snap. Only without the shouting and the violent slap of hands. No, now it just seems they’re taking turns laying cards gently onto a pile, putting them to rest, one card at a time.

“You didn’t know, Tomas.” And Marcus’ voice is as gentle as his hands. “People who go their whole lives not knowing, they’re the lucky ones.”

“I assured Angela Rance, to her face, that demons were not real.”

Marcus grins. “Well,” he says, “at least you can laugh about that now.”

And Tomas does, placing a queen of hearts on top of the pile, marveling at how much his life has changed in a matter of months. Some things for worse and some for much, much better.

“I think about Chicago sometimes,” Tomas says. “About how it was my home and, at the same time, it wasn’t. Being on the road like this, one thing has been made clear to me; a home can be multiple things.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever thought of any place as home.” In the water that’s starting to pool on the table, Marcus sketches out some lines. Crooked, mangled looking things that take on the shape of branches, trees, and eventually a whole forest. “A rambling man,” he sing-songs, “I’ve always been.”

“When I think of home now,” Tomas continues, “I don’t think of St. Anthony’s. I think of the parishioners I left behind. I think of the families we’ve helped since and will forever be apart of. I think of my sister, of Luis. God. And I think of you.”

“Of me? Oh really, Tomas? Well, there’s an old rundown heap of a home if I’ve ever seen one.”

Marcus places a card onto the pile, not really looking at either, and Tomas traps his hand under his own before he can pull away. “Old homes are the most loved. They have history, Marcus. They have generations of love seeped into their walls.”

Tomas feels the twitch, like an abandoned animal that never learned trust, but it’s only a moment. Then Marcus drags his thumb across Tomas’ knuckles. “Hmm, I think you just like calling me old.”

Before Tomas can lean in to add _and most loved_ with all his most earnest belief, the elderly owner bustles into the room, armed not with a tray of sandwiches but with an armful of towels.

“I’m sorry, boys,” she says, rushing over, “this place is older than I am and falling apart twice as quick.”

She hands them a towel to mop up the table and then proceeds to stuff another into the gap where the window fails to close all the way. It's something she must do often, stemming the steady flow of rain with gentle hands instead of going at the frame with a hammer and chisel, and that says something. Something that Tomas was maybe right in the middle of saying.

But the moment is broken and Marcus is scooping up the pile of discarded cards and holding them close to his chest. It’s left to Tomas, in all his civilian clothing, to turn in his seat and thank the lady. To nod and accept yet another towel when it’s Marcus, turned oddly demure opposite him, that had taken the brunt of the rain onto his shoulders from their quick run between their room and the main building. 

 

 

 

Months later, newly abandoned and feeling it like a phantom limb, Mouse rolls them across the country in reverse, seemingly unstitching the patch job he and Marcus had shakily but lovingly left behind, in strokes about as subtle as a sledgehammer to brick. Tomas points out the motel almost in spite of its already shaky foundations. It might just be that he’s craving the reminder of what a soft touch feels like. But, when he pushes through the door to the lobby, he’s not met by a friendly face or proffered sandwiches but instead by a stern faced man who won’t look at the collar directly.

These days it’s the starch that keeps Tomas on his feet and he wears it more often because it keeps people from noticing the dark eyes and visible guilt.

He leaves Mouse to deal with the man and wanders into the room across the way. It comes as a second physical blow to find the window squared up, freshly painted and, most importantly, shut. Tomas drops into the seat he’d been in only months before and marvels at how much his life has changed. Mouse eventually follows.

“Do you think God has favourites?”

The question isn't even fully out of his mouth before Tomas shakes his head and huffs softly under his breath. Mouse wisely stays quiet. “That's always been my problem. I would try so hard to be useful because, deep down, I thought I needed to earn what had been afforded to me. By God Himself. But now...“ The deck of cards is still there and has found its way into his hands and Tomas takes them, two at a time, and builds houses to hold his resentment. “Now I realise I only wanted to be useful to him."

“You're no more a sinner than I am, Tomas.”

Coming from Mouse, this is laughable. But, in matters such as this, she’s the rough-edged playing card holding up his own.


End file.
